World Cup 2014: Enjoy the Champions League, but for most Swiss players the World Cup will always be No 1

For countries such as Switzerland, the onset of the unbalanced Champions
League has stunted much aspiration that the World Cup allows to flourish

Swiss star: Valentin Stocker says playing in the Champions League with Basle is an 'incredible experience', but doesn't compare to the World CupPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

By Paul Knott, World Cup Nation: Switzerland

8:01AM BST 07 Apr 2014

Some experts believe that the great global festival of football, the World Cup, has been surpassed as a sporting spectacle by the corporate carnival of the Champions League.

The Swiss national team would join me in begging to differ. If one excludes Xherdan Shaqiri of Bayern Munich and Stephan Lichtsteiner of Juventus, most of them are excellent professionals playing for decent teams outside the handful of contenders to win the biggest club competition. The more equal opportunity the World Cup offers them to shine is just one reason why it is still the greatest football show on earth.

As midfielder Valentin Stocker vividly explained to me recently: “Playing in the World Cup is unbelievably special – a dream that comes round only, if you are lucky, every four years”. Stocker plays for FC Basle, a club that is the heartbeat of its home city and with whom he has enjoyed the “incredible experience” of some big Champions League nights over recent years. But he still argues that there is nothing to match the sensation of “feeling part of the occasion created by the people from all over the planet at the World Cup, of feeling that you are at the centre of the whole world’s attention for those few weeks”.

Others, including Lichtsteiner, heartily agree that participating in a World Cup is a huge landmark in the career of any professional footballer, partly due to the rarity of the opportunity to do so and the honour of representing your country, but also the uniquely global aspect of it and its nature as a sporting contest.

The Champions League’s boosters claim that it features most of the world’s best players. Indeed it does. But, with 32 participating countries, the World Cup invariably includes all of them.

Better still, the World Cup provides a more accurate perspective on how good the best players actually are. The lopsided finance of European club football concentrates most of the stars in a few squads, where they are supported by similarly stratospherically skilled team-mates and often steamroller the rest. In contrast, the World Cup spreads the best more evenly around a range of teams with a high but more varied standard of supporting cast. As a consequence, the test of a top player’s ability to influence a game is a truer one.

Collectively too, making coaches and players mould what they have into a team is a superior challenge to assembling a parade of purchased superstars. Whilst no-one would pretend that Spain and Switzerland have similar talent pools to draw upon, the international playing field is flatter than in club football. The purity of it as a sporting contest is enhanced as a result, leading to a more uncertain and exciting spectacle.

For countries such as Switzerland and, in fact all others in Europe except England, Germany, Italy (in better times) and Spain, the onset of the unbalanced Champions League has stunted the aspiration that is an essential component of sport. World Cup time is different. In Switzerland, it is tangible how emotion, as well as admiration at the quality of play, comes back to the fore.

The competition captures the attention of many more people beyond the dedicated football fans. This matters in countries like Switzerland that contain intense local identities, multiple language groups and large numbers of immigrants. The national football team is rare unifying force and performing well in the World Cup produces a positive impact on the country.

So enjoy the climax to the Champions League. But remember that no matter how big it gets, for most of the world it is a mere prelude to the main event in the summer.